Fernando Alonso had had time to bring his Alpine A522 to second place in the provisional time table (1’21 “242), before the new Renault engine began to smoke conspicuously, forcing the Spanish driver to stop quickly to allow the fire commissioners to intervene with fire extinguishers to avoid major damage on Enstone’s car.
The stop occurred at turn 13 and required the display of the red flag which interrupted the morning session of the last day of testing in Barcelona. The hydraulic system of the heat engine gave way and forced the Asturian to interrupt his work program. The Renault engine this year separated the turbo from the supercharger following an architecture pioneered by Mercedes and taken up by Honda.
Fernando Alonso explains to a photographer on the track what happened
Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images
The Alpine has already closed its business because after the lunch stop the track will be wet with tank trucks to allow Pirelli to evaluate the range of rain, full wet and intermediate tires, so the data that can be collected will not be comparable. with those of the other days.
That of the Renault engine is the only engine failure that has occurred so far in the three days, demonstrating the excellent reliability that the power units destined to be frozen from the start of the championship until 2025 have already achieved.
![Fernando Alonso, Alpine A522, follows the recovery operations of the single-seater with the engine knocked out](https://cdn-6.motorsport.com/images/mgl/6xE3k540/s8/fernando-alonso-alpine-a522-st-1.jpg)
Fernando Alonso, Alpine A522, follows the recovery operations of the single-seater with the engine knocked out
Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images
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